The Assets, an eight-part ABC miniseries event based on Circle of Treason will premiere on January 2, 2014 at 10|9 c. The series is based on Circle of Treason and will look inside the true, personal stories of the conclusion of the Cold War as told by the keepers of the nationâ€™s secrets: the CIA. The series is produced for ABC by Lincoln Square Productions. Morgan Hertzan, Rudy Bednar, and Andrew Chapman are executive producers for the series.

From May through December 1985 the CIA experienced the unparalleled loss of its stable of Soviet assets. There was no indication of the impending disaster, which all but wiped out human source reporting on the Soviet Union. Whatever the nature of the problem, something was seriously wrong. Circle of Treason is the story of Sandra Grimesâ€™ and Jeanne Vertefeuilleâ€™s personal involvement in the CIAâ€™s effort to identify the reason for the losses and to protect future Soviet assets from a similar fate of execution or imprisonment. In 1991 the quest led to their hunt for a Soviet spy in the CIA and to their identification of the â€śmoleâ€ť as case officer Aldrich â€śRickâ€ť Ames, a long-time acquaintance and coworker in the Soviet-East European Division and Counterintelligence Center of CIA. That identification allowed the FBI to take the necessary law enforcement steps that led to Amesâ€™ arrest in February 1994 and, two months later, a conviction and life sentence. One of the most destructive traitors in American history, Ames provided information to the Soviet Union that led to the deaths of at least eight Soviet intelligence officers who spied for the United States.

Not only is this the first book to be written by two of the CIA principals involved in identifying Ames as the mole, but it is also the first to provide details of the operational contact with the agents Ames betrayed, as well as similar cases with which the authors also had personal involvementâ€”a total of sixteen operational histories in all. Of particular note is GRU General Dmitriy Fedorovich Polyakov, the highest-ranking spy run by the U.S. government during the Cold War. Described as the â€śCrown Jewel,â€ť Polyakov provided the United States with a trove of information during his twenty-plus-year history of cooperation. The book also covers the aftermath of Amesâ€™ arrest, including the congressional wrath for not identifying him sooner, the FBI/CIA debriefings following Amesâ€™ plea bargain, and a retrospective of Ames the person and Ames the spy. Now retired from the CIA, Grimes and Vertefeuille are finally able to tell this inside story of the CIAâ€™s most notorious traitor and the men he betrayed.

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J Patrick Moskal

I really do not think that books written by former agents should be cleared for publication since modern day spies can have connections spanning a half century or more. There very well could be more spies working out there with ties to Aldrich Ames. These books tend to discuss methods and they highlight the motives of lust and greed leading to the deaths of valuable sources which can effect the recruitment of future assets. Tragically, these are just the high profile cases. Spying and espionage continues through this very day with most recent conviction of Major Seivirak Inson for Cambodia and Lt Col Benjamin Bishop for China. Therefore, these books written by former agents can become an intelligence resource and are better left archived for agency use or for publication at a far future date.